Marvel’s EIC Axel Alonso and Executive Editor Tom Brevoort were back on a press call to talk about Original SinS wth an S, a companion anthology to Original Sin, the current Marvel Event mini series which kicks off in May. Original SinS (that’s my spelling for emphasis) will launch in June with bi-weekly shipping issues. The core of the anthology will be a Young Avengers serial written by Ryan North of Adventure Time fame, but the rest of the stories will include an eclectic line up of creators including Ramon Villalobos. James Robinson, Don Slott, Charles Soule, Mark Bagley and even Rick Geary, is drawing a Lockjaw story.

The stories will all spin-out of the central mystery of who killed the Watcher but includes more shocking secrets about the Marvel universe. “Everything you have seen and sordid liaison, every tryst, every YouTube video, he has seen it and he knows all. There’s so much that affects so many players within the Marvel Universe, apart form the story of the murder mystery proper, there was so much grist,” said Brevoort.

Several series will spin-out of Original Sins, with a Deathlok story by Nathan Edmundson and Mike Perkins kicking off a regular ongoing by the same team. Brevoort noted that this was the character seen on the Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD so — synergy at Disney/Marvel/ABC is alive and well, whatever you call it now.

The Young Avengers will be back in a story by North. “The Young Avengers are characters with a strong fan base and following. Through the nature of how their series has worked over the years, we haven’t felt the need to publish it at all times, there is always an interest in having more Young Avengers material. It speaks to a certain segment of the audience and it was a logical choice given t he tie-in to Original Sin.”

The Original Sins stories are continuing Marvel’s move towards diversity on the page and behind it.

“There are million ways to make a comic,” said Brevoort. “To say there is one way is narrow and narrow minded. I like all sorts of different styles. An event gives us a chance to give some folks a chance to play with our toys.” Brevoort reminded everyone that long ago Brian Bendis was a quirky indie cartoonist before he was Marvel’s top writer.

Alonso noted he found the diversity of the current line up exciting and said “people are responding to it. Every character can be a hit in the right hands.”

As for the ongoing titles spinning out, aside from Deathlok, both Brevoort and Alonso promised to continue the run of more diverse characters at Marvel. Alonso noted that a female lead character title would spin out of original Sin—the seventh in their line-up, and an 8th series is in the works. “When I look in these new titles I’m very invested in them as I was with the last round of MArvel Now launches, and that was a very diverse and vital round of launches.”

“The move towards diversity wasn’t like a marketing gimmick,” said Brevoort. “We didn’t do it the once and we were done with it. It’s not a changing philosophy, it’s an acknowledgement of the world we live in. This is the world of the 21st century. There are people we should be representing more in our publishing line and we’re going to do that more as we move ahead. That’s just living in the world of 2014.”

Although the actual line-ups were revealed stories in the mini include the Young Avengers five parter by North and Ramon Villalobos; Dan Slott and Mark Bagley on a J. Jonah Jameson story, Rick Geary on Lockjaw, Charles Soule on an Inhumans story, a James Robinson Doctor Doom story, and so on. There will be a Howard The Duck story as well.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.

So wait… A character getting murdered in the first chapter leads to deep secrets revealed in later issues? I have literally never seen that in a comic series before. I’ve certainly never seen it copied in subsequent series until it’s been run into the ground.

Comic fan/internet snarkers will never be happy, but I appreciate them trying to give us a different way to publish a comic, number comics, and get the industry more in line with where it has to go to survive and thrive.

I don’t see the point of Deathlok getting a series (nice creative team, though), because the so-called Disney/Marvel “synergy” has yet to impact Marvel publishing (if it ever will). I mean, they’ve got a Captain America movie out, and yet the comic can’t shift 40K of readers a month. Marvel publishing somehow seem to believe doing these books will appeal to new readers or fans of the TV/movie stuff, when really, it’s the long-time comics fan buying them, no one else.

Well right now they have books like Silver Surfer, Superior Foes of Spider Man, Daredevil, Hawkeye, She Hulk, Punisher, Iron Fist with artists like Allred, Lieber, Samnee, Aja, Wu, Pulido, Gerards, Andrews… it’s definitely a varied artistic output like you can find on Image books but certainly not in DC publications (no hate for DC it’s just the only other mainstream publisher no other comparisons are possibile). In all these books both the writing and art is not conventional super hero style.

The problem the Beat has with DC (I guess) it’s more due to the shitty way they handle their talents and the childish gimmicks they keep doing to try to mantain circulation levels (Marvel seems to attract lots of indie authors as of late and you don’t hear all the horror stories about the management you hear from people that has worked at DC in the latest years, also Marvel has saved us (at least for now) books with 52 variant covers or line wide fill-ins wrapped in 3D covers, that are facts). Being the Beat a more niche publications that appeals also to people in the field (writer, artists and retailers) and not to the hoards of fanboys I would say their view is quite justifiable. I am more of an underground comic readers (think Top Shelf, European and South American authors and so on) so I don’t care a lot about mainstream and the inevitable fans competition between Marvel and DC but when I want a lighter reading that is not just imbecile hype driven super hero pseudo drama I can go Image, some things Marvel publish of lately but definitely not DC.